


Club of Insomniac, Overworked Geniuses – Members: One

by Elenothar



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Tony can be a monumental idiot, badass Coulson, not that that's a surprise, the team is painfully oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenothar/pseuds/Elenothar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is overworked to the point of being completely antisocial to get all his project for SHIELD and SI done. The team doesn't notice. Coulson, however, does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Club of Insomniac, Overworked Geniuses – Members: One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glimmeringmist](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=glimmeringmist).



> Written for [glimmeringmist](http://glimmeringmist.livejournal.com/) at the Avengers Fest over at LJ.
> 
> Betaed by the lovely [meteorfire](http://meteorfire.livejournal.com/).

 

*

Tony looks down at the thing in his hands a little blearily. He’s pretty sure it’s a power coupling, but the estimation of a five percent error margin is, admittedly, a little worrying. Most people assumed that he had no regard whatsoever for sleep and his own health when buried in work – they’re not entirely wrong, but despite popular opinion, Tony actually does know his limits (mostly, usually, please don’t ever ask Pepper about this). Usually, he would wonder how exactly he got tired enough to have blurred vision, if he didn’t already know the answer.At this point, Tony estimates he should’ve stopped working about five hours ago, minimum. A sane man would’ve thrown everything down at least a day ago to retreat to a bed for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly indefinitely.  
  
No one had ever claimed that Tony Stark was entirely sane – after all he’s pretty much the poster boy for ‘slightly nuts eccentric billionaire’. He also, as of a few months ago, finds himself part of a team, with responsibility, and also, he’s found out, the danger of being railroaded into things by SHIELD. Even though he would absolutely love to just not care and go to sleep, the really-not-a-power-coupling in front of him is one of the many projects Fury has seen fit to dump on him over the last month – and just so happens to be due tomorrow. Unfortunately it’s not finished, not even close (for one he has the sneaking suspicion he should be able to recognize what it is…).  
  
Now, usually Tony would just tell Fury to stuff it in as many colorful expletives as possible and he had in fact done so the last time SHIELD had wanted too much in too little time – but had immediately found himself threatened with expulsion from the team. When that hadn’t worked, Fury had come up with the idea to threaten him with Clint’s reassignment instead, arguing that SHIELD employed other snipers which could fill that position. That is an asshole move if there ever is one (and Tony fancies himself a bit of an expert on the topic) because Tony actually likes Clint.  
  
Coupled with the work he has to do for SI, which Pepper oh-so-graciously reminds him of at least once a week, and the upgrades for the armor he never stops devising, his time is basically eaten up before he can even think about doing anything else, like simply relaxing or spending time with his teammates. Well, except for the occasional heroic act that is, but thankfully the villain population has been mostly quiet lately.  
  
His current workaholic nature is probably why Steve is currently exiting the elevator, face scrunched in a vaguely disapproving frown at finding Tony down here in his workshop again.  
  
Oh, Tony has come to hate that face over the course of the last month – for even as Natasha, Clint, Thor, and after some time, even Bruce – who’d sadly told him that Tony’s increasing snappishness wasn’t good for Bruce’s blood pressure – had given up on trying to reach him, Steve had persisted. Tony doesn’t know if it’s the Captain’s innate disability to stop believing in someone or just his – by now famed – stubbornness, but he reckons that one of those traits are going to run out sometime soon anyway. He generally tends to have that effect on people.  
  
“We’re having a movie night, Tony,” Steve tells Tony’s quickly turned back. Tony nearly winces at the note of caution in his voice. “You should come. Clint is insisting that everyone needs to watch The Princess Bride. We let him pick since he still can’t move his arm.”  
  
This time Tony does wince. He’d all but forgotten that Clint had got injured on their last mission, which only adds to his guilt at not having been up to spend some time with him. Clint gets awfully antsy whenever he isn’t in top condition, and before this whole mess with Fury started, they’d often hung out.  
  
“I’m busy, Steve,” he mumbles without turning around, quickly returning to his fiddling with the… the thing he’s working on. “And I’ve seen it anyway.”  
  
They both know that’s not the point.  
  
Somehow Tony can practically feel the waves of disappointment emanating from where Steve’s standing.  
  
“Fine,” Steve sighs. “Hide yourself away down here some more if you want to.”  
  
He turns to go, halts, and then adds softly, “Clint asked after you, you know.”  
  
The door slides shut behind Steve noiselessly and for a moment Tony wishes it had slammed, or at least made some sort of noise. Everything but this silence which makes the small whispers of guilt at the back of his mind seem all the louder. He hopes, unreasonably, that this was not a last ditch effort on the dear Captain’s part.  
  
*  
  
No one comes for him the next day. He finishes his project for Fury only a day late, and even goes to drop it off himself. The Director is either too pleased with his new design for the Helicarrier camouflage to ask, or he simply doesn’t care that Tony looks more like a zombie than an actual human being.  
  
The day after that the workshop still echoes with silence, until he decides to combat it with some particularly aggressive grunge rock. The one after that, his body finally gives in, and he barely makes it to his bed.  
  
*  
  
When Tony finally emerges on his own a day after his enforced rest – mostly because even he can get tired of only eating progressively older left-overs and veggie shakes – he finds the kitchen abandoned, though strains of laughter and loud voices sound from the adjoining living room. Coffee and toast in hand, he sneaks a glance through the open door, observing his team mates sprawling around a table with poker chips.  
  
For a moment he’s poised on the edge, wanting to go to them and join the fun almost to a physical degree, but then he just turns back to the elevator as quietly as he can, ignoring whatever pangs of longing he might feel. They’re doing fine without him. He’s all but made sure that they would, and he can deal with that.  
  
Dealing, yes. He’s dealing just fine. His workshop most certainly does not feel lonely when he returns there. There’s a lot of work to be done anyway. Yes, he needs to concentrate on the work.  
  
*  
  
Tony doesn’t expect anyone to disturb his continued working-binge for at least another week.  
  
After all he did turn in the project for Fury only a day late, which is tantamount to real punctuality for him and didn’t even prompt Fury into making his constipated face for once, Pepper’sstill in LA (running his company with ruthless efficiency as usual), thus only in touch through a few phone calls per day, and the rest of the team is… well, whatever they’re doing to pass the time,   
  
He’s already three days into self-induced insomnia again (JARVIS keeps telling him that stacking his exhaustion like that will at some point have unfortunate consequences, but Tony’s got several years’ worth of experience ignoring good advice), which is totally why he half jumps and bangs his head against the screen in front of him when he hears Coulson’s voice right behind him.  
  
For a moment his brain muddles along, trying to figure out how those sneaking skills even worked, seriously, but he gives up once he comes up with a picture of Coulson in plushy slippers.  
  
When he finally returns his attention to his surroundings, Coulson is shaking his arm lightly with a mildly concerned expression on his face that translates to near-panic on the Coulson-range-of-concerned-expressions ™.  
  
“-ark.Stark, respond!”  
  
“Huh.” Tony shakes his head a little in an effort to clear his mind from exhaustion. “Relax, Coulson, everything’s fine.”  
  
Coulson calmly proceeds to give him The Eyebrow. Okay, fine, maybe “everything’s fine”was pushing it a teensybit.  
  
“I’m a little tired is all,” he says instead. “So could you please get whatever you’re here to harangue me for over with?”  
  
Coulson sighs lightly. “You didn’t show up to the last team meeting.”  
  
At Tony’s absolutely blank look he adds, “Though I can see why. It would be nice if you could remember one for a change. These meetings are important, Stark.”  
  
Tony doesn’t even try to stifle his snort. “Missing a few meetings isn’t going to affect my performance on the field, so you can stop getting your panties in a twist.”  
  
“That’s not what I just said,” Coulson points out, his tone a little too casually reasonable – if he was a man given to normal facial expressions, he’d probably frown.  
  
“Same difference,” Tony shrugs, turning back to his workbench with a half-formed thought to continue coding… whatever he’d been coding before Coulson had nearly given him a heart-attack.  
  
As far as hopeful dismissals go, this one is surprisingly subtle (for him) and also entirely unsuccessful (thank you, Coulson). The SHIELD agent doesn’t even make a move to leave.   
  
Since Tony knows only too well that he would lose a contest of patience by a landslide, he all but snaps, “I’m busy. Go away and do, I don’t know, agent-y things!”  
  
When Coulson asks, “How many projects have you finished in the last month?” instead, Tony is too surprised to stop himself from automatically answering, “Eleven.”  
  
He winces. He might as well have handed Coulson his next argument on a silver platter. At least the next question is expected.  
  
“And how many hours of sleep have you gotten?”  
  
“Uh,” Tony says, because there’s no way he’s answering that, “irrelevant? And don’t even start threatening me with your taser, that’s not going to make me tell you.”  
  
Actually, Coulson hasn’t once threatened to tase him since reappearing in the tower a month after the invasion, safe and sound and decidedly not dead – whichTony figures to mean pretty much the greatest confession of mutual tolerance in the history of mankind.  
  
“Why would I do that? I could just ask JARVIS to tell me,” the other remarks, with a hint of a smile.  
  
Oh. Oh. Alarms go off in his mind because Coulson and JARVIS collaborating is about the scariest thing he can imagine, including Pepper and Natasha or any variation of the two. Sooner or later, building a too-intelligent AI is going to come back and bite him in the ass more than it already has, which is why he says, “You wouldn’t do that, JARVIS, buddy, would you? No need to go all turncoat on me,” without much hope.  
  
“If there is a probability that divulging such information would benefit your sleeping schedule, I wouldn’t hesitate to do so, sir,” JARVIS responds, almost saccharine. Hah! Predictable. And unfortunate, but Tony’s trying not to concentrate on that part.  
  
For a moment he wishes he was less tired, as Coulson is looking at him in a vaguely disturbing searching way, but then again, this whole conversation would probably be exponentially harder if he were awake enough to give a damn.  
  
“You should rest,” the agent finally says in the exact tone of voice he usually uses when offering Tony the option of drooling into the carpet.  
  
Good thing Tony’s default reaction to that tone is digging his heels in. Tony doesn’t turn back to him. “Can’t. Got work to do. Lots of work. Oodles of work.”  
  
“Why,” Coulson asks evenly, without a hint of sarcasm (which is the biggest clue possible that he actually is being sarcastic), “don’t you tell everyone to shove it like you usually do then?”  
  
“Why don’t you figure that out yourself, you’re not stupid,” Tony fires back, the edge of rancor in his voice dulled by exhaustion.  
  
He doesn’t want to talk about Stark Industries taking hits whenever a mission goes slightly wrong, doesn’t want to talk about Fury blackmailing him into dancing to his tune. Actually, he doesn’t want to talk, period, which is why the question that slips past his lips surprises even him.  
  
“Besides, wasn’t it you who suggested this to Fury?”  
  
Coulson frowns at him. “This being what exactly?”  
  
“Fine, apparently not. Guess my weak points are more obvious than I thought.”   
  
He’s not that surprised actually, now that he thinks about it. He might not trust SHIELD or Fury as far as he can throw them, but Coulson, well, Coulson has always been something of a special case, even before he went and stupidly got himself fake-killed in their name.  
  
Coulson is still looking at him, frown deepening. “Director Fury is blackmailing you?” His face gives no clue as to his own opinion away. “With what?”  
  
Tony shifts, just minutely, a small tick of a motion that apparently couldn’t have been more telling to a highly trained agent.   
  
“The team? But-“  
  
“Well, let’s just say that a certain Hawk might be looking at a different nest sometime soon,” Tony cuts in, not even bothering to hide the anger, churning at the back of his mind.  
  
He likes to think that there’s a bit of lingering genuine shock on Coulson’s face when he asks, “Why didn’t you tell them?”  
  
There’s no question who ‘they’ are. He wants to say ‘I shouldn’t have to’, or even ‘What do I care?’ (never mind actually having been altruistic enough not to want everyone to throw an absolute shit-fit on finding out), but instead murmurs, “They didn’t ask.”  
  
Coulson gets it anyway.  
  
“They should know better.” The slight frown is back. “It seems I’m going to have to have a talk.”  
  
A charitable person might’ve been slightly sympathetic with his teammates’ soon-to-be plight, but Tony’s too tired to manage more than a half-hearted attempt at feeling charitable right now and desists.  
  
“But first,” Coulson continues pointedly, “you are going to bed.”  
  
Tony doesn’t know if he’s going along with the firm guiding hand on his arm with nothing more than a token mumbled protest because he’s just that tired or because he secretly enjoys having someone worry about him now and then, showing that people care (though the fact that he blinks once and magically finds himself in his bedroom the next second seems to support the former theory).  
  
Only when Coulson starts manhandling Tony’s mostly unresponsive form over to the bed, does he gather his wits about him enough to start protesting, “But Fury-“  
  
Coulson heads him off, a steely undercurrent in his voice, before he can even finish his thought. “Don’t worry about him. I willtake care of Director Fury.”  
  
Well, if anyone can keep Fury off his back it’s Phil Coulson, so Tony lets himself be pushed back into the bed, limbs already heavy with the onset of sleep.  
  
Later he’ll never be quite sure whether the gentle hand in his hair and the feathery brush of a pair of lips on his forehead were just figments of his overtired imagination, or a ridiculously impossible version of reality. He never does ask the one person who could’ve told him.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on Fury in this fic:  
> I know he comes across like more of a bastard than he's portrayed as in the movies here, which is actually not my intention. If I ever get around to writing a sequel, I will explain his reasoning and situation as well. Anyway, this really isn't supposed to be a Fury!hate fic or anything.


End file.
